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Selkirk mountain bike weekend: Part 2 = SMBO 3h score orienteering
After 6 hours of hilly, off road riding on Saturday, I woke up from a good sleep on Sunday morning. The sun was shining and I was ready for more!
What I had in store was a 3 hour MTB score orienteering event. As I had been ‘staying with the organisers’ I knew they had worked hard to make sure the control checkpoints were accurately placed and marked on the map, and they had done a lot of pre-riding. I was looking forward to a good event.
Home, sweet home for the weekend (my palace is the yellow one)
I was joining forces with Jon, who is one of my teammates for the 5 day expedition race in August, called Itera. We haven’t raced together for 3 years though we’ve shared a few long car journeys since then! The map was printed on A3 paper, which is quite large and means you need to refold once or twice during the race. This was because it was on a 1:25k scale. This is a bit unusual for MTB events, but definitely necessary for navigating the intricate maze of tracks on the Bowhill estate.
As usual (for me), we set off at the latest possible time. 200m later we made a slight mistake, but hoped that would be our only navigation error for the day! It was soon righted, and we find ourselves riding along a fun trail through the trees alongside the river. The controls came quickly enough as we skirted round the edge of Bowhill, picking out a route that was easiest to follow.
Navigate this!
My legs were complaining a bit from the day before, and I gratefully tucked in behind Jon as we rode into a headwind. I knew I could carry on like this if we didn’t go any faster, of if my legs didn’t get any worse, but I was slightly worried I might not keep up 🙂 .
After about an hour, we paused to consider our options. Time was passing faster than we had hoped and it was quickly becoming obvious we wouldn’t be able to get everything. In the end we stuck to the plan, looping round to the back of a big hill with controls worth lots of points at the top. Our alternative route still had all the climb in it, so it seemed best to carry on via the most number of controls.
In retrospect, this took a bit longer than expected, but was definitely worth it for the views! Up by a gigantic cairn, we could see for miles and miles all around. The route up had all been entirely rideable and was quite rewarding. From there, we passed a milestone with a control attached to it and started a fabulous fast descent back to the forest. We got straight to the highest scoring control of the day, in a small quarry in the middle of all the criss-crossing tracks. Getting out was a little bit trickier, but we escaped without incident!
One of the views from the cairn.
Copyright Jim Barton, from geograph.org.uk
As we turned onto a minor road, we realised we had only half an hour left and were heading in the wrong direction for home. An about-turn saw us considerably shorten the route, dropping more 25-point controls than we really wanted to. My legs got a new lease of life as well – and suddenly it was Jon who was working hard to keep up instead of the other way around! Unfortunately, the final kilometre along the Borders Abbeys Way was not nice easy double track as suggested by the map. Instead, it was grassy, slidy, bumpy and punctuated with numerous stiles. Progress was much too slow! We skidded back to the finish nearly 9 minutes late.
It was enough to win the mixed pairs, but only just! Marc and Ewan planned a very good event, with some challenging decisions to make about where to go, great riding (and not just a repeat of yesterday’s routes) and awesome homemade cake to finish off with. I was happy 😀 .
Selkirk mountain bike weekend: Part 1 = MTB marathon
On Wednesday the week before the Selkirk MTB marathon I fell into a metaphorical hole. My ride to work felt laboured and the easy lunchtime run might as well have been a hard race. Thursday was no better; I missed out the end of our running intervals session and wrote ‘felt bad’ in my training log – two things that never normally happen!
I took emergency measures. I went to bed early on Thursday night, took Friday off work and spent the morning packing for the weekend, cooking up snacks and generally getting on top of a few things. Marc and Ewan picked me up at lunchtime and we headed down.
Although we didn’t need to arrive so early, it meant we got our pick of the camping spots and I had a wonderfully relaxed lead in to the event. 30 seconds of high speed racing on the rollers against Paul (organiser and Itera teammate) straight after I had eaten probably wasn’t wise, but I got over it!
I think I might be sick!
The Selkirk MTB marathon incorporates the British MTB championships, as well as offering a sportive version of the full course and two shorter options as well. I had only entered the sportive, as I didn’t want to pay extra to upgrade my British Cycling membership and buy a race licence just for this one event. However, I was keen to get into a good position at the front of the rest of the riders as we rolled out of the town centre. The ‘racers’ get a short headstart and were already out of sight as we turned into Bowhill estate, off the roads and onto the first climb.
The route for this is course is amazing and I really recommend it! Almost all of it is off road, there are 4.5 big climbs and there is a mix of fire roads, moorland paths, built singletrack and muddy natural stuff. 75km of riding, 2100m of ascent. I dibbed in and out for the timed enduro sections, but I’m not sure why as I really didn’t enjoy them and fell off on the first one, quite badly bruising my inner thigh and knocking my confidence a bit. On the second one I decided it was quicker and safer just of get off and run down!
Caroline and I trying to push in at the front …
After 35km and two climbs I was beginning to feel a bit weary. Goodness me – we weren’t even halfway! Luckily, I caught up with my friend Caroline here and we rode along chatting for a bit. She needed to stop and stretch, but just after that I hit a singetrack switchback climb through the forests, which I really enjoyed.
During the ride / race my plan was to work at a hard but sustainable effort throughout and to play it smart. This meant out of the 4 feed stations I only stopped at the third (to refill my empty Camelbak bladder, eat a banana and reorganise my remaining snacks). That took 7 minutes and my gps showed I was stationary for 15 in total. My guess is some of those were when I was reduced to pushing up one of the steepest hills too slowly, or when I was busy falling off! I overtook a lot of people at the first two feed stations, most of whom didn’t catch me back up.
I was also testing out some more feedzone portables. For the whole race I only ate these and a banana and drunk water. I think it was a successful combination! This weekend’s portables were: banana and walnut almond milk pastry mini pies (slightly under-done, but tasted good nonetheless), spinach and courgette frittatas (a well-tested favourite) and peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwiched between layers of sticky rice. These last were new to me and I was unconvinced at first. However, during the race they were fantastic! Salty and sweet, sticky and easy to eat. The also didn’t need an oven to cook, so were quick to prepare.
Just finished – tired or happy?
Although my descending is passable (compared, say, to a roadie ha ha!), it is by no means up to the standard of most of the girls there. This meant I caught people on the climbs and was passed on the downhills. By the time we got to Innerleithen at the bottom of the last big climb, we had done 51km and I was beginning to feel a revival.
As I’ve said before in this blog, the climb up to the top of Minch Moor is one of my favourites. I started with a few other people and as we powered up I lost all but one of them, and caught a couple of others. They paused to take in the views at the top (and they are worth taking in), but I was on a mission.
My legs were feeling good now and with the incentive not to get caught, I sped along the Southern Upland Way until the final descent, which I’m sure I took faster than I normally would! Zooming under the finishing arch in top gear, I was all smiles 🙂 .
Definitely smiling now!
This event wasn’t one of my targets and was more of a test / training run for Itera in August. After the way I felt Weds and Thurs I was actually pretty pleased with how I rode and how the eating plan went. Out of a combined total of about 30 girls who did the long course (race or sportive) I was firmly middle of the field with the winner nearly 2 hours quicker than me! A reminder that there’s always plenty of faster people.
One final note. Marc and Ewan were the best support crew ever. They were there to organise the SMBO event on Sunday. As well as driving me down on Friday, they: adjusted my suspension forks (rebound and sag), helped check my brake pads, let me sit in the van while it rained, gave wise advice on clothing choices (short sleeve jersey and gilet, despite the forecast rain), lent me a big down jacket to ride up to the start in and throw back at them just before we left, were there as a welcoming party at the finish to say well done and take photos and, finally, stood in the slow moving queue to get my bike washed whilst I showered and changed. Awesome!
After an early dinner it was off to sleep ready for the next event – 3 hours of mountain bike score orienteering.